Metro News

Cranes aren't all visitors notice from the roof of The Radiator, a 36,000-square-foot office building that opens to tenants March 9. It's clear how denser development has radiated from the city center – into OHSU, Northwest Portland, and now to North Williams, where mid-rise buildings are dominating a landscape that once had a huge commercial bakery, small businesses and historic bungalows.

The Metro Regional Travel Options grants program has announced the 18 awardees of $2.1 million in federal transportation funding to benefit communities in the Portland region looking to make it easier to walk, bike, take transit and share rides.

Plungers will gather from local schools, businesses and community groups, to raise money for Special Olympics Oregon. Joining them will be an enthusiastic group of “Commodores” from Metro’s Parks and Environmental Services department.

In one of the first images of its kind, night-vision cameras last fall captured photos of native beavers and invasive nutria working together to build a dam across a channel connecting Smith and Bybee lakes.

House Bill 2734 would address brownfield remediation in two key ways – by allowing local governments to create limited liability organizations, called "land banks," that could take on cleanup; and by offering limited property tax cuts to property owners that clean up brownfields.

To its students and employees, Southwest Portland's National College of Natural Medicine is like an island amid a sea of pavement. As the college plans its future, it's seeking to connect with its neighborhood and the region. College leaders see the Southwest Corridor Plan as a potential ticket.

On Wednesday, Metro Council President Tom Hughes met with mayors of the region's 25 cities, plus the chairs of its 3 counties, to lay out some of the options Metro is considering for the 2015 UGB review. Among them: Delay a decision into next year, expand using soil designations instead of urban reserves, or even end this review now but start another review earlier than scheduled.

A project getting underway now aims to improve safety by opening up public access to a portion of the 590-acre site, while also restoring habitat and allowing farming to continue on another portion of the property.

These students are part of the final class of a 15-year long program providing scholarships to youth from Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean to study for two years at colleges and universities in the United States. The program, Scholarships for Education and Economic Development, is ending this year after losing its United States Agency for International Development funding.

Whether your roots in the region run generations deep or you moved to Oregon last week, you have your own reasons for loving this place – and Metro wants to keep it that way. Help shape the future of the greater Portland region and discover tools, services and places that make life better today.